Rogues need better aoe for assassination.

I understand that blizzard wants us to go combat when we want to aoe, but most of the rogues at the moment play assassination because it is just that much better for single target and burst. Please blizzard, we would like to have a Fan of Knives buff!

What. Assassination AoE is pretty good. It's not super OP on the level of eles, locks, or SV hunters, but it's not bad at all. Rupt multidot with 2-5 targets, else do your normal rotation but with FoK as your builder.

It's not going to compete with optimal BF cleave (5 targets) with KSp and AR+SB rolling, but very few things do.

Um, in a true AE situation, I don't think combat has much if any advantage (think bats on Tortos). Now if it is just like 4 things, sure combat wins. Also it depends for assassination if the mobs will live long enough to get the poisons going.

But really, I'm gonna strongly disagree about buffing assassination due to similar reasoning to infective. Assassination is clearly superior on everything. Thats really damn boring. They already neutered combat so it isn't incredibly strong on cleave fights and now its all around crap. I mean it says something when on a fight like council where you can BF most of the time that assassination is still superior.

AoE on assassination ain't bad , but building up a rupture on 3-5 targets is annoying as hell.

Compared to WW monks , SV hunters , Ret paladins , Warriors, Warlocks , Mages I have to work my butt off to get middle of the pack AoE potentional, the fact that after applying 3 Ruptures or more you are energy starved from applying them is annoying as well, by the time im waiting on energy to regen from venomous wounds to FoK, stuff already died from better AoE specs.

I like Assa on bossfights but the moment I see a bunch of trash in ToT im already turning a upside down grin, not saying we should have a 2 button AoE fest like SV hunters or WW monks, but the actual build up before you can unleash Assa AoE is a drag.

I understand that blizzard wants us to go combat when we want to aoe, but most of the rogues at the moment play assassination because it is just that much better for single target and burst. Please blizzard, we would like to have a Fan of Knives buff!

I remember a time when Rogues didn't have AoE it was a simpler time, a better time. All the classes were so different and the game was fun and challenging.

Assassination AoE is NOT fine. It's almost useless on burst AoE situations, which are quite common compared to sustained AoE situations, in which Assassination "excels" at. It also relies heavily on a secondary stat, Mastery, which makes Haste-heavy Assassination builds worse on the AoE department.

Have fun getting owned by Spinning Crane Kick on every situation.

If we talk about the class in general it's even worse, we have useless AoE buttons on every spec because damage is horribly tuned since Cataclysm. CT is only useful as an AoE SV for Subtely, being useless for both Assassination and Combat. FoK by itself does pitiful damage, being decent only as Assassination because of Deadly Poison.

I haven't checked Combat lately, but I wouldn't be surprised if it required 25+ targets for FoK to trump Blade Flurry.

Originally Posted by Ambushu

Please explain too me why out is bad. You can't just tell someone that it its bad without explanations. Makes me want to believe you're just trying to troll and failing at it. Need to back it up.

CT is bad because you're better off using Envenom for increased Deadly Poison proc chance or weaving Rupture multidotting between FoKs if it's a sustained AoE situation.

rogues are there to specialise as a Single target DPS, thats their purpose and why they're always at the top of every single-target fight!!!

...oh wait

We are. You can safely ignore looking at top-100 parses for heavy-RNG specs that vary MUCH more than assassination (WW, Fire - compare top 100 to "overall" if this is a confusing statement)... and for which the top 100 has us ahead anyway. That's the only single-target fight this tier, on heroic.

That said our AoE really isn't bad. A little quirky, because using single-target finishers as the AoE rotation feels "off" - Rupture and Envenom both being more effective than CT for AoE makes me sad - but #s wise we're really not suffering.

About the other point in the OP: why do you think Blizzard wants us to go Combat for AoE? They neutered the 2-target damage of Blade Flurry because it was seriously overpowered and pushed WAY too high a margin of superiority for cleave fights, but refunded part of the nerf in a larger cleave. This doesn't mean they want us in combat for AoE - sub's AoE is much stronger than combat's, for that matter, largely because it actually makes CT hit hard.

The people who think it's fine are completely missing the point.
- In terms of numbers, Assassination is fine
- Mechanically, however, aoe-ing as Assassination is incredibly incoherent, counter intuitive, and excessively punishing.

A huge reason for the above is the fact that energy-generation is external, generated via Rupture, and not via the rogue himself. This gives the rogue the option of multi-dotting in order to regain sufficient energy so he can continue aoe-ing without delay. Additionally, the superior "aoe-finisher" happens to be a single target finisher, due to the fact that our actual "aoe" abilities are absolutely terrible in terms of damage - damage is entirely generated from a secondary source, namely poisons; a mechanic that unfortunately isn't involved in the aoe-rotation at all via some unique poison-related aoe-finisher...

AND WITH ALL THIS IN MIND - due to combo points stacking on targets, swapping targets becomes a HUGE liability to the rotation is general...! Never mind the fact that if Rupture returns no energy upon the death of its target (due to the target not granting any honor or XP) it'll result in a temporary, complete breakdown of the rotation, while you try to "force" up a new Rupture with the pathetic baseline energy-generation you have.

All in all, the rogue player is in an awkward position;
- To regain the maximum amount of energy, target swapping and multi-dotting is required. This costs you all your combo points...
- To dish out the maximum amount of damage, your AOE-finisher is to be cast aside in favor of a single-target finisher... This costs you potential energy generation...
- Target swapping in general hinges on the fact that Rupture is supposed to return energy when its target dies... Which often doesn't seem work, and is quite inefficient when it does, making it even riskier during AOE-scenarios.
- Combo points have a tendency to "disappear" because they're often STILL stacking on some dead body somewhere, making it even harder to multi-dot properly.

The aoe rotation is inefficient, not entirely thought out, and downright lacking in some aspects. The fact that the only AOE-finisher we have isn't being used, that spec mechanics are directly hindering the rotation, and that aoe-ing in general can risk the resumption of your single target rotation, is all testament to how terrible an aoe-rotation it is.

Does it produce numbers!? Certainly. But that doesn't make it a good rotation.

I'm not exactly sure I agree with you that rogues are in an "awkward" position in terms of AoE. Personally, I love the fact that rogue AoE is different than most classes and requires target swapping and CP management/awareness as opposed to just pressing 1 button to AoE. I agree that our AoE finisher(CT) is garbage and needs to be re-worked. It would be nice for CT to deal more damage than using Envenom + FoK as long as the bleed isn't over written.

- To regain the maximum amount of energy, target swapping and multi-dotting is required. This costs you all your combo points...

All of our finishers cost us our combo points. If you're referring to wasting combo points to target swap, wait until you spend your CPs until you swap.

To dish out the maximum amount of damage, your AOE-finisher is to be cast aside in favor of a single-target finisher... This costs you potential energy generation...

Target swapping in general hinges on the fact that Rupture is supposed to return energy when its target dies... Which often doesn't seem work, and is quite inefficient when it does, making it even riskier during AOE-scenarios.

As far as I'm concerned, the only fight in ToT that doesn't return energy is Megaera. Other than that, that issue isn't really a big concern.

Combo points have a tendency to "disappear" because they're often STILL stacking on some dead body somewhere, making it even harder to multi-dot properly.

Manage your combo points better, they don't necessarily disappear unless you forget you have them in the first place. Redirect can also be used to alleviate the problem. In 5.4, we'll get a glyph that makes Redirect have no CD so that helps even further.

All in all, rogues are in a great place right now. Yes there a few things here and there that could be better but overall we're not as bad as you're making the class seem.

I'm not exactly sure I agree with you that rogues are in an "awkward" position in terms of AoE. Personally, I love the fact that rogue AoE is different than most classes and requires target swapping and CP management/awareness as opposed to just pressing 1 button to AoE. I agree that our AoE finisher(CT) is garbage and needs to be re-worked. It would be nice for CT to deal more damage than using Envenom + FoK as long as the bleed isn't over written.

Again, it's not a matter of numbers but design. What is our AOE rotation EXACTLY? Does anyone have a clear answer, or mathematical evidence to prove that one set rotation stands above the others? The fact that we have like 3 potential aoe-rotations as Assassination is exactly what I'm talking about. (One is essentially our standard single target rotation with Mutilate swapped for FOK, then we have FOK+CT, and the Rupture-multi dotting with FOK.)

All of our finishers cost us our combo points. If you're referring to wasting combo points to target swap, wait until you spend your CPs until you swap.

I'm going through the pros and cons of each rotation. In this case, you'll send CP's on energy generation, but seeing as all CP's will be spent on Ruptures, you won't have any left for CT's or Envenoms.

Because if you go with that rotation, you lose out on quite a lot of potential energy via Ruptures.

As far as I'm concerned, the only fight in ToT that doesn't return energy is Megaera. Other than that, that issue isn't really a big concern.

But an issue nonetheless.

Manage your combo points better, they don't necessarily disappear unless you forget you have them in the first place. Redirect can also be used to alleviate the problem. In 5.4, we'll get a glyph that makes Redirect have no CD so that helps even further.

All in all, rogues are in a great place right now. Yes there a few things here and there that could be better but overall we're not as bad as you're making the class seem.

No, exactly, they do not disappear. They linger on some dead body somewhere (possibly Anticipation related?) and prohibit you from gaining new ones on your new target.

On another note, if Redirect is going to be cooldown-less, what's the point of having CP's stack on the target in the first place? Might as well take it one step further and just throw them on the rogue immediately.